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  • Meta’s Threads reaches 100m users in five days

Meta’s Threads reaches 100m users in five days

Lungile Msomi
By Lungile Msomi, ITWeb journalist
Johannesburg, 11 Jul 2023

Meta’s Threads reached 100 million sign-ups within five days of launch, according to a post on the platform by CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

“Threads reached 100 million sign-ups over the weekend,” said Zuckerberg. “That's mostly organic demand and we haven't even turned on many promotions yet. Can't believe it's only been five days!”

Threads has been setting records for user growth since its launch last week. Celebrities, politicians and other newsmakers, such as Jeff Bezos, have since joined the platform that is seen as a serious threat to Elon Musk’s Twitter.

Although Threads is a standalone app, Meta has leveraged its Instagram users to gain quick numbers on the platform. Users can link their Instagram accounts using their Instagram credentials. Users can also choose to follow the same accounts as they do on Instagram, or find new followers.

According to Reuters, Threads’ sprint to 100 million users was much faster than that of the OpenAI-owned ChatGPT, which was the fastest-growing consumer application in history in January about two months after its launch.

The launch of Threads has seen backlash from Musk and has led to Twitter threatening to sue Meta over its new app, in a letter sent last week to Zuckerberg from Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro.

In the letter, Spiro accuses Meta of hiring former Twitter employees who had and continue to have access to Twitter's trade secrets and other confidential information. Meta has denied these allegations.

Much like Twitter, Threads features short texts that users can like, re-post and reply to. Posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos and videos up to five minutes in length.

The app, which is available to download on the App Store and Google Play Store, is still in its infancy and does not yet have features such as direct messaging and lacks a desktop version.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri said on a post on the platform: “We couldn’t be happier with all the excitement about this app, so thank you, but this is a race to the starting line if there ever was one.”

He added that the real test would be if people find enough value in it to keep using Threads.

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